Have just been catching up on the books sections in some recent copies of the Listener, and in a review of Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence came upon this delightful quotation which ends that particular review: “witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits or magic wands. Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.” That seems to me, a wonderful encapsulation of the magic of words.

So i wrote this into my table book and noticed there as i did, another extract from a Listener book review that i’d recorded a year or so back. Louise Wareham commented of T C Boyle in Talk, Talk “he writes the way writers sometimes seem that they should: as if sitting at the typewriter with their hair on fire”. Isn’t that a perfectly splendid image?

Iain Banks is an admirable and delightful wordsmith, though I don’t see him on fire as he wrote Matter, which i finished reading a couple of days ago. This is not the greatest of his Culture novels; nevertheless it is very good and i loved being immersed once again in his words and this future. Along with Steven Poole in his review for the Guardian i feel Banks kept us unrewardingly long in the nascent industrial, quasi-medieval society of Sursamen’s eighth level to set the scene for his tale and then had to rush the endgame. What we lovers of the Culture revel in are the technology, intrigues and personalities of the Culture folk and Matter cheats us of a sufficiency of these. Okay, Banks has lots of observations, tellingly put, to make on the nature of power, influence and their exercise that parallel our current times, and that is good. But i did hanker after more of the marvels, and those arch Minds especially, of the Culture’s civilisation. However Matter is enchantment enough.

At the end of May and into the first days of June we spent a few days in Melbourne. Early in the year our friends, M & B, had planned this mid-year weekend in the city and encouraged us to join them. We are pleased they did: once again Melbourne provided us with a very pleasant time.

We find Melbourne a satisfyingly easy city to step into. Often, we’ve romanced about which of Melbourne or Sydney we’d choose to buy an apartment in should the lady fortune play us a lotto win. Sydney’s climate wins but Melbourne is the pleasanter city. And so it proved again this visit. Our apartment on Collins Street allowed us to step out into the busy heart of the city immediately and the buzz of this friendly familiar place elated us. Even in the winter cold - a couple of days with fog and chill making all damp and grey, we felt we might have been in London or some other European city in mid-winter - no matter, we still loved being here.

A few paces across Collins Street takes us into Australia on Collins and up the escaltor to the Atrium level where fondly remembered Cafe Doppio awaits with good coffee - matched with fruit toast for breakfast or portuguese custard tarts mid-afternoon. [Another excellent place for breakfast is the Blue Train Cafe in Southgate. Their Bircher muesli is just the best. We took M & B here the night they arrived to experience the frentic evening buzz of the place - and it seemed more subdued than usual. Maybe it is that way on winter nights.]

Of course there are trams stops right outside our door as well; or alternatively a few paces away in Swanston. Melbourne’s public transport system is a great boon - we understand the locals get frustrated but we think they don’t know their luck: it’s frequent, goes all-over, and is a bargain for us on a zone-1 week’s ticket.

So Melbourne does big city buzz and transport well. It also scores high with districts that have that sort of villagey feel to them: we experienced the market in South Melbourne for the first time this visit - envying the locals their access to such a range of gorgeous foodstuffs. Or Carlton where we returned taking M & B to taste the delights of the Brunetti patisserie and the general Italian flavour of this neighbourhood when everyone comes out in the evening to meet friends.

Food: one of the things Melbourne does best. On our first evening of this visit Melbourne friends, M & A, took us to The Press Club. This modern Greek restaurant and bar in Flinders Street is the Melbourne Age’s new restaurant of the year. For good reason. We chose a tasting menu and the food was a delight - simply stunning in tastes and presentation. To give you just one instance: tiny balls of feta rolled in herbs served on a white platter with wedges of roast beetroot - take a piece of pistachio cup cake, spread with feta and a slice of beetroot - the taste sensation of these together in the mouth was astonishingly agreeable. The staff were equally good - knowledgeable and affably attentive. We had a wonderful meal here.

We also loved the meal we had on our last night of this visit at Mecca Bah in the Docklands. Food guides had recommended selecting a meal from their mezze small plates. This we did, and the food we ate was quite simply delicious. Hot turkish bread, Bastilla [Moroccan chicken pastries], spicy lamb and pine nut Boureks, Lebanese sausages and spicy chickpeas, beetroot rocket and yoghurt salad. Very, very pleasing. And our young waiter was from Colombia. Melbourne’s cosmopolitan population is another delight and doubtless a significant cause of the amazing scope of this city’s food and dining offerings.

On the Saturday we ate Italian with M & B, again in Southgate, at Tutto Bene. The place was warm and busy and the food good. I particularly liked the way they served a bowl of olives warmed with rosemary - brilliant. Sunday lunch, after visiting South Melbourne market, the four of us ate in a Belgian bistrot in the base of the Eureka Tower. Several days, of course we bought snacks for lunch from David Jones foodhall - endless temptation there.

Sunday afternoon we took a train to Ivanhoe to see the now completed and superb renovation M & A have accomplished on their house. It looks great, especially now the garden has been so well reformed behind its smart steel fence. Also great was the cake A made to have late afternoon with wine. Friends, food, wine - perfect.

There was time also for necessary return visits to both National and Ian Potter galleries. And let’s not forget the shopping! Another pleasant sojourn in a favourite city.

Look at this photo blog by Michael Blamey for a collection of superb photographs of Melbourne.

This afternoon [it being the sort of day for being indoors and reading - grey and damp and chill in late autumn] i began reading Iain Banks’ latest novel of the Culture, Matter. I’ve had the book on the shelf for weeks and weeks, wanting to plunge into Banks’ marvellous future world which i love, yet stubbornly have been saving this moment up as a treat. Today seemed the day.

I’ve hardly begun - just a few chapters - but, as i wholly expected and would have been bitterly disappointed had it not happened, i am thoroughly enjoying, entirely loving, this writing and these worlds once more. Whether animal or machine the characters [they always have the most wonderful names - Banks is utterly brilliant at naming] are immediately drawing my interest, the technology fascinates and the intrigue of the tale commands curiosity. He’s doing it again - such excellent stuff. Now i shall not want the tale and living vicariously in the Culture’s domain to ever end.

You can get a taste by reading the Prologue online here.
Steven Poole has written a review, Culture Clashes, in the Guardian Unlimited.
For more about Iain Banks’ writing go to this website.
You don’t need to know anything about the Culture before you read any of the novels in the series but if you wish to know more, Banks has written a “few notes” on this group-civilisation, available here.

We’ve just watched the first episode of Skins seriesII.

Brilliant! all over again.

Usually April in Sydney is warm; balmy autumn where the evenings are still and you can go out to dinner with no need for a jacket over your shirt. This year there were numerous showers and the temperature cool. For two days late summer returned only to be blown away again by bitingly cold southerly winds. We expected to return home to similar chills to be confounded by a Christchurch basking in more Sydney-typical warmth of 24°.

Things to do in Sydney:

• take the train from the airport to the city - an easy & efficient journey
• get a red weekly [or whatever] travelpass for bus, train, ferry - great value
• for wonderful views of the harbour & several Sydney bays take the ferry from Circular Quay to Watson’s Bay
• have a pre-dinner drink in Zeta Bar, level 3 at the Sydney Hilton
• eat at Fishface in Victoria Street, Darlinghurst [you can book a table if you go before 7]; at Forbes & Burton also in Darlinghurst for excellent modern Australian dishes in a beautiful old stone room; at the tiny Spice Market [or take-away] in Double Bay [there is also a branch in Kiribili] where you will get exquisite Thai food - be sure to try the Betel Leaf Parcels and the Banana Flower Salad; at Blackbird - Balcony Level at Cockle Wharf - lively atmosphere & fast service
• buy food snacks & treats in David Jones foodhall [you can eat them there at the communal tables]
• browse shops at the huge Westfield Mall at Bondi Junction [DJ have a foodhall here also]
• take a train to Milson’s Point and walk back over the Harbour Bridge to the Rocks & Circular Quay
• take a bus to Bronte for the coastal cliff-top walk back to Bondi
• visit the art gallery in the Domain [in April the Archibald Prize paintings are on show]
• plus the contemporary art gallery at Circular Quay/Rocks
• visit the Chinese garden in Darling Harbour
• indulge your need for coffee & pastries at Fratelli Paradiso Challis Avenue Potts Point

One of the more hapless moments Lev experiences in London [The Road Home - see previous post] occurs at an orchestral concert. Fortunately our two recent visits to concert halls have been much happier experiences.

A couple of weeks back the Eggner Trio returned to play. Their programme that night consisted of Mozart’s Trio in G, followed by Island Songs by John Psathas. Mozart - what to say? i always like. However, contemporary chamber music rarely does it for me - but often there are bits of such works that are ok, and so it was here - there was a section in these songs, i think in the second movement, where the piano maintained a wonderfully intense and demanding beat for several minutes. I loved that.

After the interval the brothers played Tchaikovsky’s A minor Trio. Now Pyotr Ilyich was never intended for chamber music, he always needed a much bigger set of toys to play with. So he tries to cram a concerto into this trio and the guys did him proud - made pretty much the quantity of sound a small orchestra might have produced. And it was definitely Tchaikovsky - all his lush romanticism soaring forth with familiar phrases and themes popping up all over the piece.

More Tchaikovsky last week: the NZSO was back in town with their brilliant new conductor, Pietari Inkinen. If you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know already how much this guy impresses me - and no, it’s not just [but more than a bit!] his youthful blond good looks. I am now, after this concert, even more convinced Inkinen is a very very accomplished conductor with a fine understanding of the works he presents. I really like the way he gets the NZSO to play.

I don’t care for Lilburn’s music and would never choose to listen to it. Way too self-consciously serious, his compositions are, for me, cheerless. When Inkinen conducted his Aotearoa Overture on Thursday night the orchestra actually made this piece interesting and listenable. Gosh. And finding that the reviewer in the newspaper the next morning had experienced a degree of revelation also, gave me a feeling of some vindication for my previous disenchantment. [I'll put a link to a copy of the review down below.] 

Next up that night visiting British cellist Natalie Clein played Elgar’s concerto. Again Inkinen, well i guess she and he together both leading the orchestra, produced a wonderfully understated rendering of this gorgeous music. The bases in a strong, slow, deep opening to the second movement were just amazing.

After the interval, Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony; a great deal that is familiar, but here too Inkinen breathed fresh subtleties and strengths, so that sometimes it was like hearing it for new.

Read what David Sell wrote in The Press.

Last week i finished reading Rose Tremain’s latest book, The Road Home. It is a delight and i warmly recommend it. The story of Lev’s journey from his dying East European village to find work in contemporary London, his struggles and triumphs there, and his eventual return to rouse his family and friends in the achievement of his dream, make captivating reading. Tremain creates an irresistably attractive being in her central character. Within a few pages of the book’s beginning you find yourself with Lev, sharing his fears and hopes, and yearning along with him for fate to cast a benevolent eye in his direction. She’s fickle, mistress fate, but the story is wonderfully affirming in spite of life’s inevitable trials.

I first came across Rose Tremain’s writing when the cover of The Way I Found Her compelled my attention in Scorpio Books. Beyond the striking blue and pink cover the blurb and opening page suggested something worth pursuing and i bought the book. I am so very glad i did. I love The Way I Found Her. That story of Lewis’s summer in Paris is equally masterful in all those most important book things: compositional style, plot development, characterisation, insight and comment on our world and human nature.

Read some Tremain; she’s very good.

Late last year we saw the film based on Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Good books deserve faithful or astutely perceptive adaptations into film; otherwise one just ends up resenting the attempt. The film of Atonement was very well done: the sets and the acting conjuring the intent and themes of the story to very large degree faithfully. When i went back and reread the book soon after i thoroughly enjoyed being reimersed in its world, while the visual memories of the film in no way detracted from my enjoyment.

Recently came news that Niki Caro is to direct a film version of Elizabeth Knox’s The Vintner’s Luck. I am both excited and trepidatious. This novel is amongst those i treasure most, and so of course i want the film to do it utmost justice. Of the few details The Press news item intimated, there seems considerable promise. The director is accomplished; it is a joint NZ-French production; and Sobran, the vintner, is played by handsome blond Belgian, Jérémie Renier [who, incidentally, appears in a minor role in Atonement], his wife by Keisha Castle-Hughes.

This news had to be shared with Séb, in France, since he too holds this book dear, having read it during his year studying English here in Christchurch. And just last week he came back to me with more promising news: Xas, the angel, is to be played - so very fittingly - by sexy M. Gaspard Ulliel. Better and better.

Way too long since my last post, i know - nothing has seemed to stir me sufficiently. But M & C have just been in Montreal, and we’ve just looked at the photos they took there. So Montreal revisited!

You may recall i wasn’t overly enthusiastic about Montreal after our visit - fine, but not really moving. Under snow Montreal takes on some additional charm in M & C’s photos. And one of the pleasingly curious things about their album on facebook is that quite a few of the photos are of the very things that we pointed our camera at as well. - Like the crazy Vietnamese restaurant in the Village, and much more predictably l’Hotel de Ville. Thank you M, C, for taking us back to the streets and squares of Montreal.

This year i’m taking a French class one evening a week at the Polytechnic - it’s fun - i hope to begin to be able to converse in French as i never learned to do when at high school. That was a long long time ago - but i surprise myself quite often at the vocabulary i can still recall. Now i just have to learn to think in it and string it into meaningful and fluently spoken sentences. Then maybe i can go back to Montreal and use my new skill in Francaise.

I have just finished reading Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. The discussion presented here is impressively broad and cogent, and immensely valuable. Richard Dawkins is doing good work through his books such as this, through his lectures, media appearances, speaking tours and website. I laud and applaud the man. And I am with him: those of us who can and do think for ourselves need and must take every opportunity to confront the nonsense, the evil that is religion. Dawkins is quite right that for too long and with dire consequences we have been too polite in our culture about religion. All religions’ idiocy and pernicious influence needs to be questioned and opposed at every turn.

Read more @ Richard Dawkins’ website .

And also read god is not Great: how religion poisons everything by Christopher Hitchens - you can read the first chapter here .